7 proven ways to kick start your creativity!

Image: "Carpe Diem" by fantartsy JJ

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.”

-Albert Einstein

Ever find yourself attempting to solve a vexing problem and feeling blocked mentally? Need to brainstorm a solution to a product design, marketing problem or even a personal issue but feel you’ve run out of creative steam?

Don’t just slog away, hoping that inspiration will somehow magically come to you! There are a number of techniques that have been used successfully by individuals and small groups to get their creative juices flowing – and best of all, they’re free and relatively easy!

1. Warm up with some brain teasers or other fun, mentally stimulating exercises. If you’re working with a small group – or even by yourself, breaking out of your normal thinking patterns by engaging in some fun brain teasers, word puzzles or similar exercises is a great way to get your creativity kick started. Don’t have any brain teasers or puzzles handy? Check out the exercises at BrainDen.com – try the “Best Puzzles” – this is a great way to begin a brainstorming session!

2. Seek out a change of venue. Another way to stimulate your creativity is to move to a different location or environment. Stuck in a conference room? Go outside and sit at a picnic table – or to a local barista. If you’re at home and always work in a certain room, go to another room or head outside… don’t let familiar surroundings cramp your style! Trying to be creative in the conference room you use for day to day meetings is a mistake; shake it up a bit and go to a fun, out of the ordinary location.

3. Utilize random stimuli to shake things up. This technique involves relating random objects and stimuli to your problem or challenge in order to bring fresh perspectives and approaches to solving it. Others have described this technique in simple terms such as:

• Fully immerse yourself in your environment, soaking up everything
• Focus on a random object – a tree, a rock, a shovel, a picture,- literally anything
• Then relate that random stimulus to the issue or problem you face by free associating

Follow this link to an excellent primer on this technique at mycoted.com

4. Form teams with diverse personalities and functional expertise. When you’re forming a team for a brainstorming or creative session, by all means choose a diverse group. For example, if you face a technical challenge, certainly you should include talented designers and engineers, but also bring in free thinkers from other functions – no matter how diverse. Some of the best creative sessions I’ve been involved with have included personnel from Engineering, Marketing, Production Planning, and even Finance. Creativity isn’t restricted to marketing or agency types and design engineers! With the right personalities and mindsets, some marvelous outcomes can be realized through diverse groups. NOTE: avoiding overly analytical types and negative people is a good idea… you want individuals who can think freely and build on others’ ideas – no matter how outlandish!

5. Another great way to foster creativity is to break out of your normal mindset. Nearly all of us are actually capable of great creativity. In our normal day to day lives however, our creativity has been blocked by our reliance upon logical thinking and functional association. Functional association (or “functional fixation“) is when we are unable to see beyond the “normal” or accepted uses or function of an item. Many interesting illustrations of functional fixation exist in cognitive psychology; here’s one example:

A number of people were separated into two groups. Members of Group 1 were individually shown into a room containing a table on which the following objects were placed: a half open box containing several thumbtacks, a few matches, and a candle. The challenge was to attach the candle to the wall and lighting it, using the available items.

The experiment environment was set up in such a way that the candle could be attached to the wall using only one possible method : using a thumbtack or thumbtacks, attach the thumbtack box to the wall so that it could support the candle. Then affix the candle to the box by lighting it, melting some candle wax on the box, and attaching the candle.

Arriving at this solution involves overcoming the functional fixation associated with the primary function of the thumbtack box (which is to contain thumbtacks) by thinking of another, novel use for it (i.e. as a place to provide support for the candle.) Only a few members from Group 1 managed to solve this problem. The majority of Group 2, on the other hand, succeeded in placing the candle in its required place. Why??

The difference between the two groups was that with Group 2, the thumbtacks were spread out on the table and their box was empty; with Group 1, the thumbtacks were in the box. Taking the pins out of the box probably weakened the association between the box and its normal function, and it increased the availability of the idea of using the box for something else.

A popular technique for breaking out of our functional fixedness is an exercise called “Creative Uses” or “Uses For.” It can be used for mental stimulation (see #1 above) or for practical, problem solving exercises.

Creative Uses

Select a common object – a rubber ball, toothpick, brick, piece of pipe, screwdriver, fork, and so forth – and create a list of 25 original uses for it. Describe each use in a sentence. A brief example:

Creative Uses for a broom handle:

1. Cut it to length and use it as a safety bar for a sliding glass door; 2. Use it as a walking stick; 3. Use it for the center support for a tent; 4. Use it as a fishing pole; 5. Use it in the garden as a tomato stake, and so forth

Try this and you’ll discover a new avenue into exploring your creativity. Then try applying this approach to the issue you’re grappling with.

6. If you’re working on solving a product or process problem, try two related techniques, “Improvements To” or “What Iffing:”

• “Improvements to” focuses on improving the original function of an object or process. It could involve making it lighter, safer, quieter, less expensive, add features, and so forth. If you’re trying to enhance a product, process, or function, try free associating on what improvements could be made to it?
• “What Iffing” is a process by which we imagine a new or different reality. As with brainstorming, one of the keys is to be non-judgmental or analytical. If we were trying to come up with a breakthrough in books, we might ask a series of questions like, “What if books were delivered to me based upon my preferences?” “What if books were read to me at bedtime by my alarm clock?” “What if the author stopped by my house and told me a story, versus my having to read it;” “What if I could influence the book’s story?;” “What if I didn’t need to read a book, but the book read itself to me?” …and so forth.
  

7. Enter the Bizarro World! If you’re a Superman (or Seinfeld) fan, you’re no doubt familiar with the backwards “Bizarro” world, where “hello” means “goodbye.” Turning things upside down (or backwards, as the case may be) is a great way to open up your creativity. A few thoughts and tips:

• List all the assumptions you have about your challenge or problem
• One by one, change or flip your assumptions…
  • Take the approach that’s the exact opposite of what logic would dictate. For example, let’s say you run a restaurant and are concerned about how long it takes, on average, to deliver each meal. What would you do to deliver meals as slowly as possible?
  • If you want to improve employee satisfaction, focus on what it would take to make Company X the worst possible place to work.
  • Turn a positive statement into a negative statement
  • Exaggerate product attributes to the point of absurdity
  • Look at processes backward – begin with the end result and work backwards from there
  • Imagine for a moment that the normal restraints within which you operate – physical, economic, regulatory or otherwise – were somehow suspended for a day… what would happen? How would things change??
    

Bonus Tip: keep a small notebook with you at all times in order to record ideas and inspirations. Reviewed later on, these random fragments and thoughts can lead to some great work! If you’ve forgotten your notebook, text yourself a simple message on your cell phone!

Try using these techniques the next time you’re searching for a solution to a problem. If you’re willing to let your mind stretch a bit, you’ll definitely be surprised by your results!

Please comment – and share your techniques for unleashing your creativity.

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